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What is Human Trafficking?

Forced labor may result when unscrupulous employers exploit workers who are vulnerable due to high rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, discrimination, corruption, political conflict, citizenship status or cultural acceptance of the practice. Victims of domestic servitude generally have an informal workplace such a home, which often socially isolates domestic workers from the community. That type of informal workplace is conducive to exploitation since authorities cannot inspect private property as easily as they can inspect formal workplaces.

Sex trafficking of an adult usually involves being coerced, forced, or deceived into a commercial sex act. Commercial sex acts include, but are not limited to prostitution and/or pornography as a means for the perpetrator to make money. In the state of Florida, if the victim is a child than force, fraud or coercion, does not need to be proven. The mere fact the victim is a child and the act meets the definition of a commercial sex act, makes the child a victim.

According to Florida Statute, human trafficking affects all sectors of our community and victims can be found in plain sight if we learn to identify the signs and take the time to look. Some traffickers keep their victims under lock and key. However, the most frequently used practices are less obvious techniques that include: isolating victims from the public and family members, confiscating passports, visas, or other identification documents, using or threatening to use violence toward victims or their families, prohibiting them from seeing their children, telling victims that they will be imprisoned or deported for immigration violations if they contact authorities, and controlling the victims' funds by holding the money ostensibly for safekeeping.